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Well, point one, they call this a "Summary for Policymakers" - but what is it a summary of? There *is no underlying report*! Contrast with, for example, IPCC AR4 WG1 SPM, which states in the very first section: "The basis for substantive paragraphs in this Summary for Policymakers can be found in the chapter sections specified in curly brackets." - and, sure enough, every section does have curly bracket references to the more substantive chapters behind it.

Second obvious difference: the IPCC reports don't have any up-front title - for AR4 WG1 SPM the title is simply "Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Summary for Policymakers"

While, on this, shall we say, intriguing document, there's a very up-front title: "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate". So much for their claim that this is an "independent examinationof the evidence available in the published, peer-reviewed literature – examined without bias and selectivity." (Seitz' Foreword).

Well, I'll take more of a look later today, but not exactly promising :-)

They say:"Evidence of warming is not evidence thatthe cause is anthropogenic."

Then ignore the isotope ratio, the information on CO2 production each year from fossil fuels, and the known physics of CO2 and Ir. So right from the start they are lying bastards with a diseased agenda based solely upon their own egos.

Then they have a go at the hockey stick:"Independent analyses of paleo-temperatures thatdo not rely on tree rings have all shown a MedievalWarm Period (MWP) warmer than currenttemperatures. For example, we have data fromGreenland borehole measurements (Figure 2) byDahl-Jensen et al. [1999], various isotope data, andan analysis by Craig Loehle [2007] of proxy data,which excludes tree rings. (Figure 3) Abundanthistorical data also confirm the existence of awarmer MWP [Moore 1995]."

They reference the execrable Loehle E&E paper, which is regarded as junk by scientists the world over. The graph of Greenland ice core is only of Greenland, a continent so large that it covers more than half the Earths surface, so no other evidence is needed. They also have figure 3, which features a temperature trace from teh Sargasso sea, with a resolution of 50 to 100 years and which stops in 1975, with 2006 addded. As we all know, the Sargasso sea occupies most of the worlds oceans, and therefore is a useful proxy for determination of global temperature.

Page 16, they have two pictures, the one on the left taken from the FAR, page 675. It is called a "Greenhouse-model-predicted temperatures trends versus latitue and altitude". Beside it is a picture of trends from the HadAT2 radiosonde data, also from CCSP 2006. Now, I am sure those of you with access to CCSP 2006 will be able to tell us about it, but my own observation here is that the denialists are comparing apples and oranges. The IPCC picture is a simulation from 1890 to 1999. The Hadley centre data used is only from 1958. The IPCC report suggestst that radiosondes are a bit innacurate, I'm sure someone will say more on that.

I think the obvious overall comment is that this "report" isn't: its not a coherent summary of the literature (it doesn't pretend very hard to be that, other than asserting it in the intro). Its just a set of nit-picks against the IPCC.

If you took all the bits that are just attacking IPCC, very little would be left.

But I'm not going to say that here because I plan to write my own post saying so :-)

It is also worth noting that they reference Jaworowski and Beck about the unreliability of ice core measurements and past changes in Co2 levels. This again points to a deliberate attempt to confuse people by putting undue weight on critiscisms that are just totally wrong.

This article is a cornucopia of denialist arguments. Can someone tell me how many times they manage to make claims which are ultimately contradictory?

Yes, and it's the same Singer who is also sceptical about the CFCs/ozone depletion connection, the connection between UV-B radiation and melanoma, and the connection between second-hand smoke and lung cancer.

Well, as you might imagine, there's certainly much less than meets the eye in this "report". I glanced through their reference list and was very surprised - lots of Science and Nature papers and the like. Then I looked more closely - very few of these cited papers actually support the claims made in the "report". It might be fruitful to contact the cited authors to see what they think, and gather that ...

In particular, I noticed on computer modeling they have a long quote from Trenberth, one of the major leaders in the field. His quote is first referring to the fact that IPCC doesn't make predictions (obviously: the future is determined by human actions, and so is scenario-dependent). And secondly that some form of better initialization of the models would be needed to make reliable regional climate forecasts.

But in the report, this is interpreted to mean that all computer climate models are worthless! I think Trenberth would be extremely surprised to see his words used to support that claim... And so it goes for much of the rest - they're either misinterpreting the work of respected climate scientists, or else they're touting the work of extremely fringe people. Not a lot to stand on there...

I'm not a climate scientist but as a layman I notice that the real IPCC seem to be able to make their case just by referencing supporting papers and summarising them, then let people make up their own minds if it is a problem. I didn't notice lengthy rants in the IPCC report to the effect that Singer or the other denialists are full of it. By contrast it seems these guys cannot present their theory without large numbers of references to the IPCC being wrong. Even if that were so it would not support their theory. You can only conclude that attacking the IPCC is more important to them than simply presenting a theory of their own and the evidence for it. Almost all the report is "don't listen to those guys". There's nothing like that in the IPCC report.

Apart from the lies 'AR4 dropped Mann's Hockey Stick paper' - (its discussed in WG1 Ch6 Section 6.6.1), selectivity (Loehle, but no Moberg), more lies 'The satellites show no warming trend since 1998', more selectivity : no mention of the inconvenient truth that cosmic ray flux and TSI have both flatlined since direct measurements began, I see Singer has not let a little thing like integrity hold him back; he is still pressganging the late Roger Revelle into service for the sceptical cause. Page 27 has ... "and proposals for a successor international treaty to Kyoto, are unnecessary, would be ineffective if implemented, and would waste resources that can better be applied to genuine societal problems [Singer, Revelle and Starr 1991]." which is a reference to

Singer, S. F., R. Revelle and C. Starr 1991. What to do about Global Warming: Look Before You Leap. Cosmos 1:28-33.

which is the Singer-authored piece in Cosmos that he railroaded Revelle, who was recovering from heart surgery at the time, into putting his name to (before going out for cocktails, in the Singer version), and slapping a lawsuit ever since on anybody who claimed the work was not a joint effort. Eli has posted on this unedifying episode

The folks behind the "NIPCC report" are still touting Douglass et al.'s bogus 2007 paper. Not only is the paper bogus, but Singer et al. have to say bogus things about it which aren't anywhere in the paper. I guess two wrongs make a right?

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Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett is a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny, a chair election from retirement, at a wanna be research university that has a lot to be proud of but has swallowed the Kool-Aid. The students are naive but great and the administrators vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional. His colleagues are smart, but they have a curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves. Prof. Rabett is thankful that they occasionally heed his pointing out the implications of the various enthusiasms that rattle around the department and school. Ms. Rabett is thankful that Prof. Rabett occasionally heeds her pointing out that he is nuts.